


Child of my Heart

by Medie



Category: Dark Angel, The X-Files
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Crossover, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2001-04-09
Updated: 2001-04-09
Packaged: 2017-11-08 00:15:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/436997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Medie/pseuds/Medie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John's side of <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/436986">Miracle of Mine</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	Child of my Heart

July 4, 2005  
Montana  
4:56 a.m.

When John rolled over and Dana wasn't beside him, he came awake instantly. A hand automatically reached for the gun in the nightstand drawer. His ears strained to hear through the darkness for sounds of trouble. Though Missy was only a child, if anyone attacked the house, she'd fight back. And that he'd hear loud and clear.

Upon realizing the house was quiet, he decided to forego the gun as he had very good idea where his wife was.

4:56 a.m.

She'd gone to check on Melissa.

How many times had she slipped out of bed in the wee hours of the morning to check on her daughter? Ostensibly it was to make sure Melissa was sleeping comfortably, and that she wasn't cold, but John knew Dana better than that. She was making sure Missy was still there, that no one had stolen her away in the few hours they'd been in bed.

It was a hell of a way to live: constantly on guard, always watching for soldiers, rarely letting Melissa out of their sight. Forever worried that Manticore would find their tiny refuge and take back their little girl. To say it could be stressful was an understatement. But at the same time, John was happier than he'd been in a very long time.

Compared to the life he could have been living as Director of the FBI with some fancy house in D.C., John Doggett much preferred hiding out on a small ranch in Montana with his wife and their little girl. Easy choice there.

Getting out of bed, Doggett couldn't help but recall the events that had played themselves out after the discovery of the truth about Dana's pregnancy. The discovery that very likely cemented their relationship.

A wry grin played at the edges of John's mouth as he moved out into the hallway, ignoring the coldness of the hardwood flooring against his bare feet. The relationship he and his wife enjoyed had been abnormal – by everyone else's standards - from the start but perfectly normal to them. The initial hostility on Dana's side of things had merely shown him what kind of a firecracker the future Mrs. Doggett was. Not that he'd guessed then what sort of relationship would develop. No, then he'd been hoping for a friendship at best, at worst a civil working relationship.

As the weeks had passed, they'd both found themselves drawn into a partnership that couldn't quite be described as comfortable. Not quite. Dana's faith in her first partner and his unwillingness to believe in the validity of Mulder's theories had seen to that. Not to mention a tense atmosphere that – looking back on it – had nothing to do with work but  
everything to do with the man and woman behind "Agent Doggett" & "Agent Scully."

But gradually he'd begun to relax his staunch refusal to believe the Truth behind the X-Files and Dana'd begun to see that he wasn't trying to replace her partner. That he was just trying to do his job. The sparks between them had changed as well, become more apparent. The dance had begun and John still smiled at it.

The discovery of the secret she'd been hiding from him — her pregnancy — had hurt. Even now he still felt the twinge. He understood intellectually that she'd been too worried about it herself to even consider telling him, someone she was still learning to trust, but it still stung. 

She'd seen it in him. The hurt. And to Dana's surprise – she'd later admitted to him – seeing that hurt had caused her more pain than she'd expected. The knowledge that she'd done something to wound him brought her a surprising amount of guilt and, ironically enough, led to them growing closer.

Then they found Mulder.

Naturally their developing relationship had been shelved, temporarily, in all the excitement of Mulder's return. John had worried that it would finish it permanently-how could a few months of ups and downs compare to the lifetime of experiences she and Mulder had packed into seven years?

In the end, he was wrong. Having Mulder back proved to be a benefit to his and Dana's relationship rather than a hindrance. It gave Dana a chance to search her feelings and her own heart. What she'd found surprised her. In the time Mulder had been gone, Dana Scully had changed and grown. While she still loved her first partner, she was not *in* love with him.

That epiphany had led to another-she was in love with John Doggett.

It was a very timely realization. Less than a week later the Lone Gunmen had shown up with the news about Melissa.

The memory of Dana's reaction to the news was ingrained in John Doggett's mind and his heart seized with pain at the recollection of it. 

At first, she'd been heartbreaking in her dignity. She'd accepted the file, and the information it contained, with all the elegance of a French noble facing the guillotine. She'd clung to that elegant composure until the Gunmen left. 

Then she shattered.

Mulder reached her first, by virtue of being physically closer. He pulled her into an embrace and stroked her hair, trying to sooth her with whispered words. But how do you comfort someone who's just been told the miracle she's carrying – a little girl according to the file – was created to be nothing more than an instrument of death? Neither he nor John had ever found an answer for that one.

Dana was still crying when she'd pulled away from Mulder and turned to look at John.

Understanding the relationship that was forming between his best friend and the man who'd been so diligent in searching for him, Mulder had taken the file the Gunmen had delivered and gone to his desk to pour over it. It wasn't much in the way of privacy but it was as much as he could offer and John had appreciated it. He knew Mulder had seen the look in his eyes, understood the need to hold Dana in his arms and try to easy the pain in any way possible.

In the end, John had found a way to ease that pain.

Four words.

"She's still your miracle."

******

Standing in the doorway of Missy's bedroom, watching Dana interact with the daughter he'd come to love as his own, John's own words echoed in his mind and he smiled.

When Missy denied, with an angelic expression, listening in on the playful conversation he'd had with his wife, John couldn't help speaking. 

His smile widened as the two redheads looked up, both smiling at the sight of him.

Missy's reaction was more immediate than her mother's, a welcome indication that there was a little girl's mind in that genetically enhanced body, not a soldier's. She bounced out of bed and raced to his side.

Bending down, John scooped the giggling child up into his arms and hugged her as he watched Dana rise gracefully to her feet. Joking with his wife, his gaze openly admired her form as she crossed the room to join them.

Even with four years of marriage behind them, he still had a hard time believing that the woman he fell asleep with and woke up to was his wife. After all the hardships John had endured in his life, God must have decided to make up for it big time with Dana Scully. Giving Missy to them had been an extra bonus.

Sure, the boys at Manticore had been the ones to arrange and design Melissa Doggett's DNA. They'd spliced the feline DNA into her genetic code-in Doggett's opinion there was a cat out there somewhere who was seriously delinquent in child support payments-and made countless other alterations. But God had given Missy her soul, her personality. And in John Doggett's eyes, He'd done a hell of a job.

Missy might have been created to be a soldier, but he didn't care.

She was still their little miracle.


End file.
